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Kurt Lewin and the Planned Approach to Change:A Re-appraisal

Bernard BurnesManchester School of Management

The work of Kurt Lewin dominated the theory and practice of changemanagement for over 40 years. However, in the past 20 years, Lewin’s approach tochange, particularly the 3-Step model, has attracted major criticisms. The key onesare that his work: assumed organizations operate in a stable state; was only suitablefor small-scale change projects; ignored organizational power and politics; and wastop-down and management-driven. This article seeks to re-appraise Lewin’s work andchallenge the validity of these views. It begins by describing Lewin’s background andbeliefs, especially his commitment to resolving social conflict. The article then moveson to examine the main elements of his Planned approach to change: Field Theory;Group Dynamics; Action Research; and the 3-Step model. This is followed by a briefsummary of the major developments in the field of organizational change sinceLewin’s death which, in turn, leads to an examination of the main criticisms levelledat Lewin’s work. The article concludes by arguing that rather than being outdated orredundant, Lewin’s approach is still relevant to the modern world.

INTRODUCTION

Freud the clinician and Lewin the experimentalist – these are the two men whose names will stand out before all others in the history of our psychological era.

The above quotation is taken from Edward C Tolman’s memorial address for KurtLewin delivered at the 1947 Convention of the American Psychological Associa-tion (quoted in Marrow, 1969, p. ix). To many people today it will seem strangethat Lewin should have been given equal status with Freud. Some 50 years afterhis death, Lewin is now mainly remembered as the originator of the 3-Step modelof change (Cummings and Huse, 1989; Schein, 1988), and this tends often to be

Journal of Management Studies 41:6 September 20040022-2380

© Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2004. Published by Blackwell Publishing, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DQ,UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.

Address for reprints: Bernard Burnes, Manchester School of Management, UMIST, Manchester M601QD, UK ([email protected]).

dismissed as outdated (Burnes, 2000; Dawson, 1994; Dent and Goldberg, 1999;Hatch, 1997; Kanter et al., 1992; Marshak, 1993). Yet, as this article will argue,his contribution to our understanding of individual and group behaviour and therole these play in organizations and society was enormous and is still relevant.

In today’s turbulent and changing world, one might expect Lewin’s pioneeringwork on change to be seized upon with gratitude, especially given the high failurerate of many change programmes (Huczynski and Buchanan, 2001; Kearney,1989; Kotter, 1996; Stickland, 1998; Waclawski, 2002; Wastell et al., 1994;Watcher, 1993; Whyte and Watcher, 1992; Zairi et al., 1994). Unfortunately, hiscommitment to extending democratic values in society and his work on FieldTheory, Group Dynamics and Action Research which, together with his 3-Stepmodel, formed an inter-linked, elaborate and robust approach to Planned change,have received less and less attention (Ash, 1992; Bargal et al., 1992; Cooke, 1999).Indeed, from the 1980s, even Lewin’s work on change was increasingly criticizedas relevant only to small-scale changes in stable conditions, and for ignoring issuessuch as organizational politics and conflict. In its place, writers sought to promotea view of change as being constant, and as a political process within organizations(Dawson, 1994; Pettigrew et al., 1992; Wilson, 1992).

The purpose of this article is to re-appraise Lewin and his work.. The articlebegins by describing Lewin’s background, especially the origins of his commitmentto resolving social conflict. It then moves on to examine the main elements of hisPlanned approach to change. This is followed by a description of developmentsin the field of organizational change since Lewin’s death, and an evaluation of thecriticisms levelled against his work. The article concludes by arguing that ratherthan being outdated, Lewin’s Planned approach is still very relevant to the needsof the modern world.

LEWIN’S BACKGROUND

Few social scientists can have received the level of praise and admiration that has been heaped upon Kurt Lewin (Ash, 1992; Bargal et al., 1992; Dent and Goldberg, 1999; Dickens and Watkins, 1999; Tobach, 1994). As Edgar Schein(1988, p. 239) enthusiastically commented:

There is little question that the intellectual father of contemporary theories ofapplied behavioural science, action research and planned change is Kurt Lewin.His seminal work on leadership style and the experiments on planned changewhich took place in World War II in an effort to change consumer behaviourlaunched a whole generation of research in group dynamics and the imple-mentation of change programs.

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For most of his life, Lewin’s main preoccupation was the resolution of social con-flict and, in particular, the problems of minority or disadvantaged groups. Under-pinning this preoccupation was a strong belief that only the permeation ofdemocratic values into all facets of society could prevent the worst extremes ofsocial conflict. As his wife wrote in the Preface to a volume of his collected workpublished after his death:

Kurt Lewin was so constantly and predominantly preoccupied with the task ofadvancing the conceptual representation of the social-psychological world, andat the same time he was so filled with the urgent desire to use his theoreticalinsight for the building of a better world, that it is difficult to decide which ofthese two sources of motivation flowed with greater energy or vigour. (Lewin,1948b)

To a large extent, his interests and beliefs stemmed from his background as aGerman Jew. Lewin was born in 1890 and, for a Jew growing up in Germany, atthis time, officially-approved anti-Semitism was a fact of life. Few Jews could expectto achieve a responsible post in the civil service or universities. Despite this, Lewinwas awarded a doctorate at the University of Berlin in 1916 and went on to teachthere. Though he was never awarded tenured status, Lewin achieved a growinginternational reputation in the 1920s as a leader in his field (Lewin, 1992).However, with the rise of the Nazi Party, Lewin recognized that the position ofJews in Germany was increasingly threatened. The election of Hitler as Chancel-lor in 1933 was the final straw for him; he resigned from the University and movedto America (Marrow, 1969).

In America, Lewin found a job first as a ‘refugee scholar’ at Cornell Universityand then, from 1935 to 1945, at the University of Iowa. Here he was to embarkon an ambitious programme of research which covered topics such as child-parentrelations, conflict in marriage, styles of leadership, worker motivation and perfor-mance, conflict in industry, group problem-solving, communication and attitudechange, racism, anti-Semitism, anti-racism, discrimination and prejudice, integra-tion-segregation, peace, war and poverty (Bargal et al., 1992; Cartwright, 1952;Lewin, 1948a). As Cooke (1999) notes, given the prevalence of racism and anti-Semitism in America at the time, much of this work, especially his increasinglypublic advocacy in support of disadvantaged groups, put Lewin on the politicalleft.

During the years of the Second World War, Lewin did much work for the American war effort. This included studies of the morale of front-line troops and psychological warfare, and his famous study aimed at persuading Americanhousewives to buy cheaper cuts of meat (Lewin, 1943a; Marrow, 1969). He was also much in demand as a speaker on minority and inter-group relations

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(Smith, 2001). These activities chimed with one of his central preoccupa-tions, which was how Germany’s authoritarian and racist culture could be replacedwith one imbued with democratic values. He saw democracy, and the spread of democratic values throughout society, as the central bastion against auth-oritarianism and despotism. That he viewed the establishment of democracy as amajor task, and avoided simplistic and structural recipes, can be gleaned from thefollowing extracts from his article on ‘The special case of Germany’ (Lewin,1943b):

. . . Nazi culture . . . is deeply rooted, particularly in the youth on whom thefuture depends. It is a culture which is centred around power as the supremevalue and which denounces justice and equality . . . (p. 43)

To be stable, a cultural change has to penetrate all aspects of a nation’s life. Thechange must, in short, be a change in the ‘cultural atmosphere,’ not merely achange of a single item. (p. 46)

Change in culture requires the change of leadership forms in every walk of life.At the start, particularly important is leadership in those social areas which arefundamental from the point of view of power. (p. 55)

With the end of the War, Lewin established the Research Center for GroupDynamics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The aim of the Centerwas to investigate all aspects of group behaviour, especially how it could bechanged. At the same time, he was also chief architect of the Commission onCommunity Interrelations (CCI). Founded and funded by the American JewishCongress, its aim was the eradication of discrimination against all minority groups.As Lewin wrote at the time, ‘We Jews will have to fight for ourselves and we willdo so strongly and with good conscience. We also know that the fight of the Jewsis part of the fight of all minorities for democratic equality of rights and oppor-tunities . . .’ (quoted in Marrow, 1969, p. 175). In pursuing this objective, Lewinbelieved that his work on Group Dynamics and Action Research would providethe key tools for the CCI.

Lewin was also influential in establishing the Tavistock Institute in the UK andits Journal, Human Relations ( Jaques, 1998; Marrow, 1969). In addition, in 1946,the Connecticut State Inter-Racial Commission asked Lewin to help train leadersand conduct research on the most effective means of combating racial and reli-gious prejudice in communities. This led to the development of sensitivity train-ing and the creation, in 1947, of the now famous National Training Laboratories.However, his huge workload took its toll on his health, and on 11 February 1947he died of a heart attack (Lewin, 1992).

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LEWIN’S WORK

Lewin was a humanitarian who believed that only by resolving social conflict,whether it be religious, racial, marital or industrial, could the human condition beimproved. Lewin believed that the key to resolving social conflict was to facilitatelearning and so enable individuals to understand and restructure their perceptionsof the world around them. In this he was much influenced by the Gestalt psy-chologists he had worked with in Berlin (Smith, 2001). A unifying theme of muchof his work is the view that ‘. . . the group to which an individual belongs is theground for his perceptions, his feelings and his actions’ (Allport, 1948, p. vii).Though Field Theory, Group Dynamics, Action Research and the 3-Step modelof change are often treated as separate themes of his work, Lewin saw them as aunified whole with each element supporting and reinforcing the others and all ofthem necessary to understand and bring about Planned change, whether it be atthe level of the individual, group, organization or even society (Bargal and Bar,1992; Kippenberger, 1998a, 1998b; Smith, 2001). As Allport (1948, p. ix) states:‘All of his concepts, whatever root-metaphor they employ, comprise a single well-integrated system’. This can be seen from examining these four aspects of his workin turn.

Field Theory

This is an approach to understanding group behaviour by trying to map out thetotality and complexity of the field in which the behaviour takes place (Back, 1992).Lewin maintained that to understand any situation it was necessary that: ‘Oneshould view the present situation – the status quo – as being maintained by certainconditions or forces’ (Lewin, 1943a, p. 172). Lewin (1947b) postulated that groupbehaviour is an intricate set of symbolic interactions and forces that not only affectgroup structures, but also modify individual behaviour. Therefore, individualbehaviour is a function of the group environment or ‘field’, as he termed it. Con-sequently, any changes in behaviour stem from changes, be they small or large, inthe forces within the field (Lewin, 1947a). Lewin defined a field as ‘a totality ofcoexisting facts which are conceived of as mutually interdependent . . .’ (Lewin,1946, p. 240). Lewin believed that a field was in a continuous state of adaptationand that ‘Change and constancy are relative concepts; group life is never withoutchange, merely differences in the amount and type of change exist’ (Lewin, 1947a,p. 199). This is why Lewin used the term ‘quasi-stationary equilibrium’ to indicatethat whilst there might be a rhythm and pattern to the behaviour and processesof a group, these tended to fluctuate constantly owing to changes in the forces orcircumstances that impinge on the group.

Lewin’s view was that if one could identify, plot and establish the potency ofthese forces, then it would be possible not only to understand why individuals,

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groups and organizations act as they do, but also what forces would need to bediminished or strengthened in order to bring about change. In the main, Lewinsaw behavioural change as a slow process; however, he did recognize that undercertain circumstances, such as a personal, organizational or societal crisis, thevarious forces in the field can shift quickly and radically. In such situations, estab-lished routines and behaviours break down and the status quo is no longer viable;new patterns of activity can rapidly emerge and a new equilibrium (or quasi-stationary equilibrium) is formed (Kippenberger, 1998a; Lewin, 1947a).

Despite its obvious value as a vehicle for understanding and changing groupbehaviour, with Lewin’s death, the general interest in Field Theory waned (Back,1992; Gold, 1992; Hendry, 1996). However, in recent years, with the work ofArgyris (1990) and Hirschhorn (1988) on understanding and overcoming resis-tance to change, Lewin’s work on Field Theory has once again begun to attractinterest. According to Hendry (1996), even critics of Lewin’s work have drawn onField Theory to develop their own models of change (see Pettigrew et al., 1989,1992). Indeed, parallels have even been drawn between Lewin’s work and the workof complexity theorists (Kippenberger, 1998a). Back (1992), for example, arguedthat the formulation and behaviour of complex systems as described by Chaos and Catastrophe theorists bear striking similarities to Lewin’s conceptualization ofField Theory. Nevertheless, Field Theory is now probably the least understoodelement of Lewin’s work, yet, because of its potential to map the forces imping-ing on an individual, group or organization, it underpinned the other elements ofhis work.

Group Dynamics

. . . the word ‘dynamics’ . . . comes from a Greek word meaning force . . . ‘groupdynamics’ refers to the forces operating in groups . . . it is a study of these forces:what gives rise to them, what conditions modify them, what consequences theyhave, etc. (Cartwright, 1951, p. 382)

Lewin was the first psychologist to write about ‘group dynamics’ and the impor-tance of the group in shaping the behaviour of its members (Allport, 1948; Bargalet al., 1992). Indeed, Lewin’s (1939, p. 165) definition of a ‘group’ is still gener-ally accepted: ‘. . . it is not the similarity or dissimilarity of individuals that con-stitutes a group, but interdependence of fate’. As Kippenberger (1998a) notes,Lewin was addressing two questions: What is it about the nature and characteris-tics of a particular group which causes it to respond (behave) as it does to the forceswhich impinge on it, and how can these forces be changed in order to elicit a moredesirable form of behaviour? It was to address these questions that Lewin beganto develop the concept of Group Dynamics.

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Group Dynamics stresses that group behaviour, rather than that of individuals,should be the main focus of change (Bernstein, 1968; Dent and Goldberg,1999). Lewin (1947b) maintained that it is fruitless to concentrate on changing the behaviour of individuals because the individual in isolation is constrained bygroup pressures to conform. Consequently, the focus of change must be at thegroup level and should concentrate on factors such as group norms, roles, inter-actions and socialization processes to create ‘disequilibrium’ and change (Schein,1988).

Lewin’s pioneering work on Group Dynamics not only laid the foundations forour understanding of groups (Cooke, 1999; Dent and Goldberg, 1999; French andBell, 1984; Marrow, 1969; Schein, 1988) but has also been linked to complexitytheories by researchers examining self-organizing theory and non-linear systems(Tschacher and Brunner, 1995). However, understanding the internal dynamics ofa group is not sufficient by itself to bring about change. Lewin also recognized theneed to provide a process whereby the members could be engaged in and com-mitted to changing their behaviour. This led Lewin to develop Action Researchand the 3-Step model of change.

Action Research

This term was coined by Lewin (1946) in an article entitled ‘Action research andminority problems’. Lewin stated in the article:

In the last year and a half I have had occasion to have contact with a greatvariety of organizations, institutions, and individuals who came for help in thefield of group relations. (Lewin, 1946, p. 201)

However, though these people exhibited . . .

. . . a great amount of good-will, of readiness to face the problem squarely andreally do something about it . . . These eager people feel themselves to be in afog. They feel in a fog on three counts: 1. What is the present situation? 2. Whatare the dangers? 3. And most importantly of all, what shall we do? (Lewin, 1946,p. 201)

Lewin conceived of Action Research as a two-pronged process which would allowgroups to address these three questions. Firstly, it emphasizes that change requiresaction, and is directed at achieving this. Secondly, it recognizes that successfulaction is based on analysing the situation correctly, identifying all the possible alter-native solutions and choosing the one most appropriate to the situation at hand(Bennett, 1983). To be successful, though, there has also to be a ‘felt-need’. Felt-

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need is an individual’s inner realization that change is necessary. If felt-need is lowin the group or organization, introducing change becomes problematic. The the-oretical foundations of Action Research lie in Gestalt psychology, which stressesthat change can only successfully be achieved by helping individuals to reflect onand gain new insights into the totality of their situation. Lewin (1946, p. 206) statedthat Action Research ‘. . . proceeds in a spiral of steps each of which is composedof a circle of planning, action, and fact-finding about the results of the action.’ Itis an iterative process whereby research leads to action and action leads to evalu-ation and further research. As Schein (1996, p. 64) comments, it was Lewin’s viewthat ‘. . . one cannot understand an organization without trying to change it . . .’Indeed, Lewin’s view was very much that the understanding and learning whichthis process produces for the individuals and groups concerned, which then feedsinto changed behaviour, is more important than any resulting change as such(Lewin, 1946).

To this end, Action Research draws on Lewin’s work on Field Theory to iden-tify the forces that focus on the group to which the individual belongs. It also drawson Group Dynamics to understand why group members behave in the way theydo when subjected to these forces. Lewin stressed that the routines and patternsof behaviour in a group are more than just the outcome of opposing forces in aforcefield. They have a value in themselves and have a positive role to play inenforcing group norms (Lewin, 1947a). Action Research stresses that for changeto be effective, it must take place at the group level, and must be a participativeand collaborative process which involves all of those concerned (Allport, 1948;Bargal et al., 1992; French and Bell, 1984; Lewin, 1947b).

Lewin’s first Action Research project was to investigate and reduce violencebetween Catholic and Jewish teenage gangs. This was quickly followed by a project to integrate black and white sales staff in New York department stores(Marrow, 1969). However, Action Research was also adopted by the TavistockInstitute in Britain, and used to improve managerial competence and efficiency inthe newly-nationalized coal industry. Since then it has acquired strong adherentsthroughout the world (Dickens and Watkins, 1999; Eden and Huxham, 1996;Elden and Chisholm, 1993). However, Lewin (1947a, p. 228) was concerned that:

A change towards a higher level of group performance is frequently short lived; after a ‘shot in the arm,’ group life soon returns to the previous level.This indicates that it does not suffice to define the objective of a planned changein group performance as the reaching of a different level. Permanency at the new level, or permanency for a desired period, should be included in theobjective.

It was for this reason that he developed his 3-Step model of change.

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3-Step Model

This is often cited as Lewin’s key contribution to organizational change. However,it needs to be recognized that when he developed his 3-Step model Lewin was notthinking only of organizational issues. Nor did he intend it to be seen separatelyfrom the other three elements which comprise his Planned approach to change(i.e. Field Theory, Group Dynamics and Action Research). Rather Lewin saw thefour concepts as forming an integrated approach to analysing, understanding andbringing about change at the group, organizational and societal levels.

A successful change project, Lewin (1947a) argued, involved three steps:

• Step 1: Unfreezing. Lewin believed that the stability of human behaviour wasbased on a quasi-stationary equilibrium supported by a complex field ofdriving and restraining forces. He argued that the equilibrium needs to bedestabilized (unfrozen) before old behaviour can be discarded (unlearnt) andnew behaviour successfully adopted. Given the type of issues that Lewin wasaddressing, as one would expect, he did not believe that change would be easyor that the same approach could be applied in all situations:

The ‘unfreezing of the present level may involve quite different problemsin different cases. Allport . . . has described the ‘catharsis’ which seems nec-essary before prejudice can be removed. To break open the shell of com-placency and self-righteousness it is sometimes necessary to bring about anemotional stir up. (Lewin, 1947a, p. 229)

Enlarging on Lewin’s ideas, Schein (1996, p. 27) comments that the key tounfreezing ‘. . . was to recognise that change, whether at the individual orgroup level, was a profound psychological dynamic process’. Schein (1996)identifies three processes necessary to achieve unfreezing: disconfirmation ofthe validity of the status quo, the induction of guilt or survival anxiety, andcreating psychological safety. He argued that: ‘. . . unless sufficient psychologi-cal safety is created, the disconfirming information will be denied or in otherways defended against, no survival anxiety will be felt. and consequently, nochange will take place’ (Schein, 1996, p. 61). In other words, those concernedhave to feel safe from loss and humiliation before they can accept the newinformation and reject old behaviours.

• Step 2: Moving. As Schein (1996, p. 62) notes, unfreezing is not an end in itself;it ‘. . . creates motivation to learn but does not necessarily control or predictthe direction’. This echoes Lewin’s view that any attempt to predict or iden-tify a specific outcome from Planned change is very difficult because of thecomplexity of the forces concerned. Instead, one should seek to take intoaccount all the forces at work and identify and evaluate, on a trial and error

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basis, all the available options (Lewin, 1947a). This is, of course, the learningapproach promoted by Action Research. It is this iterative approach ofresearch, action and more research which enables groups and individuals tomove from a less acceptable to a more acceptable set of behaviours. However,as noted above, Lewin (1947a) recognized that, without reinforcement, changecould be short-lived.

• Step 3: Refreezing. This is the final step in the 3-Step model. Refreezing seeks tostabilize the group at a new quasi-stationary equilibrium in order to ensure thatthe new behaviours are relatively safe from regression. The main point aboutrefreezing is that new behaviour must be, to some degree, congruent with therest of the behaviour, personality and environment of the learner or it willsimply lead to a new round of disconfirmation (Schein, 1996). This is whyLewin saw successful change as a group activity, because unless group normsand routines are also transformed, changes to individual behaviour will not besustained. In organizational terms, refreezing often requires changes to orga-nizational culture, norms, policies and practices (Cummings and Huse, 1989).

Like other aspects of Lewin’s work, his 3-Step model of change has becomeunfashionable in the last two decades (Dawson, 1994; Hatch, 1997; Kanter et al.,1992). Nevertheless, such is its continuing influence that, as Hendry (1996, p. 624)commented:

Scratch any account of creating and managing change and the idea that changeis a three-stage process which necessarily begins with a process of unfreezingwill not be far below the surface.

LEWIN AND CHANGE: A SUMMARY

Lewin was primarily interested in resolving social conflict through behaviouralchange, whether this be within organizations or in the wider society. He identifiedtwo requirements for success:

(1) To analyse and understand how social groupings were formed, motivatedand maintained. To do this, he developed both Field Theory and GroupDynamics.

(2) To change the behaviour of social groups. The primary methods he devel-oped for achieving this were Action Research and the 3-Step model ofchange.

Underpinning Lewin’s work was a strong moral and ethical belief in the impor-tance of democratic institutions and democratic values in society. Lewin believed

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that only by strengthening democratic participation in all aspects of life and beingable to resolve social conflicts could the scourge of despotism, authoritarianismand racism be effectively countered. Since his death, Lewin’s wider social agendahas been mainly pursued under the umbrella of Action Research (Dickens andWatkins, 1999). This is also the area where Lewin’s Planned approach has beenmost closely followed. For example, Bargal and Bar (1992) described how, over a number of years, they used Lewin’s approach to address the conflict betweenArab-Palestinian and Jewish youths in Israel through the development of inter-group workshops. The workshops were developed around six principles based onLewin’s work:

(a) a recursive process of data collection to determine goals, action to imple-ment goals and assessment of the action; (b) feedback of research results to train-ers; (c) cooperation between researchers and practitioners; (d) research based onthe laws of the group’s social life, on three stages of change – ‘unfreezing,’‘moving,’ and ‘refreezing’ – and on the principles of group decision making; (e)consideration of the values, goals and power structures of change agents andclients; and (f ) use of research to create knowledge and/or solve problems.(Bargal and Bar, 1992, p. 146)

In terms of organizational change, Lewin and his associates had a long and fruitful relationship with the Harwood Manufacturing Corporation, where hisapproach to change was developed, applied and refined (Marrow, 1969). Coch andFrench (1948, p. 512) observed that, at Harwood: ‘From the point of view offactory management, there were two purposes to the research: (1) Why do peopleresist change so strongly? and (2) What can be done to overcome this resistance?’Therefore, in both his wider social agenda and his narrower organizationalagenda, Lewin sought to address similar issues and apply similar concepts. Sincehis death, it is the organizational side of his work which has been given greaterprominence by his followers and successors, mainly through the creation of theOrganization Development (OD) movement (Cummings and Worley, 1997;French and Bell, 1995).

OD has become the standard-bearer for Kurt Lewin’s pioneering work onbehavioural science in general, and approach to Planned change in particular(Cummings and Worley, 1997). Up to the 1970s, OD tended to focus on groupissues in organizations, and sought to promote Lewin’s humanistic and democra-tic approach to change in the values it espoused (Conner, 1977; Gellerman et al.,1990; Warwick and Thompson, 1980). However, as French and Bell (1995) noted,since the late 1970s, in order to keep pace with the perceived needs of organiza-tions, there has been a major broadening of scope within the OD field. It hasmoved away from its focus on groups and towards more organization-wide issues, such as Socio-Technical Systems, organizational culture, organizational

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learning and radical transformational change. Nevertheless, despite OD’s attemptsto modernize itself, in the last 20 years Lewin’s legacy has met with increasingcompetition.

NEWER PERSPECTIVES ON CHANGE

By the early 1980s, with the oil shocks of the 1970s, the rise of corporate Japanand severe economic downturn in the West, it was clear that many organizationsneeded to transform themselves rapidly and often brutally if they were to survive(Burnes, 2000). Given its group-based, consensual and relatively slow nature,Lewin’s Planned approach began to attract criticism as to its appropriateness andefficacy, especially from the Culture-Excellence school, the postmodernists and theprocessualists.

The Culture-Excellence approach to organizations, as promoted by Peters andWaterman (1982) and Kanter (1989), has had an unprecedented impact on themanagement of organizations by equating organizational success with the posses-sion of a strong, appropriate organizational culture (Collins, 1998; Watson, 1997;Wilson, 1992). Peters and Waterman (1982) argued that Western organizationswere losing their competitive edge because they were too bureaucratic, inflexible,and slow to change. Instead of the traditional top-down, command-and-controlstyle of management which tended to segment organizations into small rule-drivenunits, proponents of Culture-Excellence stressed the integrated nature of organi-zations, both internally and within their environments (Kanter, 1983; Watson,1997). To survive, it was argued, organizations needed to reconfigure themselvesto build internal and external synergies, and managers needed to encourage a spiritof innovation, experimentation and entrepreneurship through the creation ofstrong, appropriate organizational cultures (Collins, 1998; Kanter, 1983; Petersand Waterman, 1982; Wilson, 1992).

For proponents of Culture-Excellence, the world is essentially an ambiguousplace where detailed plans are not possible and flexibility is essential. Instead ofclose supervision and strict rules, organizational objectives need to be promotedby loose controls, based on shared values and culture, and pursued throughempowered employees using their own initiative (Watson, 1997). They argue thatchange cannot be driven from the top but must emerge in an organic, bottom-upfashion from the day-to-day actions of all in the organization (Collins, 1998;Hatch, 1997). Proponents of Culture-Excellence reject as antithetical the Plannedapproach to change, sometimes quite scathingly, as the following quotation fromKanter et al.’s (1992, p. 10) shows:

Lewin’s model was a simple one, with organizational change involving threestages; unfreezing, changing and refreezing . . . This quaintly linear and static

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conception – the organization as an ice cube – is so wildly inappropriate that itis difficult to see why it has not only survived but prospered . . . Suffice it to sayhere, first, that organizations are never frozen, much less refrozen, but are fluidentities with many ‘personalities’. Second, to the extent that there are stages,they overlap and interpenetrate one another in important ways.

At the same time that the Culture-Excellence school were criticizing Plannedchange, others, notably Pfeffer (1981, 1992), were claiming that the objectives, andoutcomes, of change programmes were more likely to be determined by powerstruggles than by any process of consensus-building or rational decision-making.For the postmodernists, power is also a central feature of organizational change,but it arises from the socially-constructed nature of organizational life:

In a socially-constructed world, responsibility for environmental conditions lieswith those who do the constructing . . . This suggests at least two competing sce-narios for organizational change. First, organization change can be a vehicle of domination for those who conspire to enact the world for others . . . An alter-native use of social constructionism is to create a democracy of enactment inwhich the process is made open and available to all . . . such that we createopportunities for freedom and innovation rather than simply for further domi-nation. (Hatch, 1997, pp. 367–8)

The other important perspective on organizational change which emerged in the1980s was the processual approach, which derives from the work of Andrew Pettigrew (1973, 1979, 1985, 1990a, 1990b, 1997). Processualists reject prescrip-tive, recipe-driven approaches to change and are suspicious of single causes orsimple explanations of events. Instead, when studying change, they focus on theinter-relatedness of individuals, groups, organizations and society (Dawson, 1994;Pettigrew and Whipp, 1993; Wilson, 1992). In particular, they claim that theprocess of change is a complex and untidy cocktail of rational decision processes,individual perceptions, political struggles and coalition-building (Huczynski andBuchanan, 2001). Pettigrew (1990a, 1990b) maintains that the Planned approachis too prescriptive and does not pay enough attention to the need to analyse andconceptualize organizational change. He argues that change needs to be studiedacross different levels of analysis and different time periods, and that it cuts acrossfunctions, spans hierarchical divisions, and has no neat starting or finishing point;instead it is a ‘complex analytical, political, and cultural process of challengingand changing the core beliefs, structure and strategy of the firm’ (Pettigrew, 1987,p. 650).

Looking at Planned change versus a processual approach, Dawson (1994,pp. 3–4) comments that:

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Although this [Lewin’s] theory has proved useful in understanding plannedchange under relatively stable conditions, with the continuing and dynamicnature of change in today’s business world, it no longer makes sense to imple-ment a planned process for ‘freezing’ changed behaviours . . . The processualframework . . . adopts the view that change is a complex and dynamic processwhich should not be solidified or treated as a series of linear events . . . centralto the development of a processual approach is the need to incorporate ananalysis of the politics of managing change.

Also taking a processualist perspective, Buchanan and Storey’s (1997, p. 127) maincriticism of those who advocate Planned change is:

. . . their attempt to impose an order and a linear sequence to processes that arein reality messy and untidy, and which unfold in an iterative fashion with muchbacktracking and omission.

Though there are distinct differences between these newer approaches to change,not least the prescriptive focus of the Culture-Excellence approach versus the ana-lytical orientation of the processualists, there are also some striking similaritieswhich they claim strongly challenge the validity of the Planned approach tochange. The newer approaches tend to take a holistic/contextual view of organi-zations and their environments; they challenge the notion of change as an ordered,rational and linear process; and there is an emphasis on change as a continuousprocess which is heavily influenced by culture, power and politics (Buchanan andStorey, 1997; Burnes, 2000; Dawson, 1994; Kanter et al., 1992; Pettigrew, 1997).Accompanying and offering support to these new approaches to change were newperspectives on the nature of change in organizations. Up to the late 1970s, theincremental model of change dominated. Advocates of this view see change asbeing a process whereby individual parts of an organization deal incrementallyand separately with one problem and one goal at a time. By managers respond-ing to pressures in their local internal and external environments in this way, overtime, their organizations become transformed (Cyert and March, 1963; Hedberget al., 1976; Lindblom, 1959; Quinn, 1980, 1982).

In the 1980s, two new perspectives on change emerged: the punctuated equi-librium model and the continuous transformation model. The former approachto change:

. . . depicts organizations as evolving through relatively long periods of stability(equilibrium periods) in their basic patterns of activity that are punctuated byrelatively short bursts of fundamental change (revolutionary periods). Revolu-tionary periods substantively disrupt established activity patterns and install thebasis for new equilibrium periods. (Romanelli and Tushman, 1994, p. 1141)

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The inspiration for this model arises from two sources: firstly, from the challengeto Darwin’s gradualist model of evolution in the natural sciences (Gould, 1989);secondly, from research showing that whilst organizations do appear to fit theincrementalist model of change for a period of time, there does come a point whenthey go through a period of rapid and fundamental change (Gersick, 1991).

Proponents of the continuous transformation model reject both the incremen-talist and punctuated equilibrium models. They argue that, in order to survive,organizations must develop the ability to change themselves continuously in a fun-damental manner. This is particularly the case in fast-moving sectors such as retail(Greenwald, 1996). Brown and Eisenhardt (1997, p. 29) draw on the work of com-plexity theorists to support their claim for continuous change:

Like organizations, complex systems have large numbers of independent yetinteracting actors. Rather than ever reaching a stable equilibrium, the mostadaptive of these complex systems (e.g., intertidal zones) keep changing contin-uously by remaining at the poetically termed ‘edge of chaos’ that exists betweenorder and disorder. By staying in this intermediate zone, these systems neverquite settle into a stable equilibrium but never quite fall apart. Rather, thesesystems, which stay constantly poised between order and disorder, exhibit themost prolific, complex and continuous change . . .

Complexity theories are increasingly being used by organization theorists andpractitioners as a way of understanding and changing organizations (Bechtold,1997; Black, 2000; Boje, 2000; Choi et al., 2001; Gilchrist, 2000; Lewis, 1994;Macbeth, 2002; Shelton and Darling, 2001; Stacey et al., 2002; Tetenbaum, 1998).Complexity theories come from the natural sciences, where they have shown thatdisequilibrium is a necessary condition for the growth of dynamic systems (Pri-gogine and Stengers, 1984). Under this view, organizations, like complex systemsin nature, are seen as dynamic non-linear systems. The outcome of their actionsis unpredictable but, like turbulence in gases and liquids, it is governed by a set ofsimple order-generating rules (Brown and Eisenhardt, 1997; Lewis, 1994; Lorenz,1993; Mintzberg et al., 1998; Stacey et al., 2002; Tetenbaum, 1998; Wheatley,1992). For organizations, as for natural systems, the key to survival is to developrules which are capable of keeping an organization operating ‘on the edge ofchaos’ (Stacey et al., 2002). If organizations are too stable, nothing changes andthe system dies; if too chaotic, the system will be overwhelmed by change. In bothsituations, radical change is necessary in order to create a new set of order-generating rules which allow the organization to prosper and survive (MacIntoshand MacLean, 2001).

As can be seen, the newer approaches to change and the newer perspectives onthe nature of change have much in common. One of the problems with all threeperspectives on change – incrementalism, punctuated equilibrium and continuous

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change – is that all three are present in organizational life and none appear domi-nant. Indeed, Burnes (2000) even questions whether these are separate and com-peting theories, or merely different ways of looking at the same phenomenon:change. He points out that sectoral, temporal and organizational life cycle differ-ences can account for whether organizations experience incremental, punctuatedequilibrium or continuous change (Kimberley and Miles, 1980). He also draws onthe natural sciences, in the form of population ecology, to argue that in any givenpopulation of organizations one would expect to see all three types of change(Hannan and Freeman, 1988). Therefore, rather like the Jungian concept of thelight and dark, these various perspectives on change may be shadow images ofeach other, none of which by themselves capable of portraying the whole(Matthews, 2002).

LEWIN’S WORK: CRITICISMS AND RESPONSES

From the 1980s onwards, as newer perspectives on organizational life and changehave emerged, Lewin’s Planned approach has faced increasing levels of criticisms.This section summarizes the main criticisms and responds to them.

Criticism 1

Many have is argued that Lewin’s Planned approach is too simplistic and mecha-nistic for a world where organizational change is a continuous and open-endedprocess (Dawson, 1994; Garvin, 1993; Kanter et al., 1992; Nonaka, 1988; Petti-grew, 1990a, 1990b; Pettigrew et al., 1989; Stacey, 1993; Wilson, 1992).

Response 1. These criticisms appear to stem from a misreading of how Lewin per-ceived stability and change. He stated:

One should view the present situation – the status quo – as being maintained bycertain conditions or forces. A culture – for instance, the food habits of a certaingroup at a given time – is not a static affair but a live process like a river whichmoves but still keeps to a recognizable form . . . Food habits do not occur inempty space. They are part and parcel of the daily rhythm of being awake andasleep; of being alone and in a group; of earning a living and playing; of beinga member of a town, a family, a social class, a religious group . . . in a districtwith good groceries and restaurants or in an area of poor and irregular foodsupply. Somehow all these factors affect food habits at any given time. Theydetermine the food habits of a group every day anew just as the amount ofwater supply and the nature of the river bed determine the flow of the river, itsconstancy or change. (Lewin, 1943a, pp. 172–3)

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Far from viewing social or organizational groups as fixed and stable, or viewingchange as linear and uni-dimensional, it is clear that he understood the limits ofstability at least as well as his critics. He argued that social settings are in a stateof constant change but that, just like a river, the rate varies depending on the envi-ronment. He viewed change not as a predictable and planned move from onestable state to another, but as a complex and iterative learning process where thejourney was more important than the destination, where stability was at best quasi-stationary and always fluid, and where, given the complex forces involved, out-comes cannot be predicted but emerge on a trial and error basis (Kippenberger,1998a; Lewin, 1947a). Therefore, rather than being prescriptive, Lewin recognizedthe unpredictable (non-linear) nature of change and, as Hendry (1996) notes, headopted the same ‘contextualist’ and learning approach favoured by many of hiscritics. Indeed, as outlined earlier, some argue that Lewin’s conception of stabil-ity and change is very similar to that of many complexity theorists (Back, 1992;Elrod and Tippett, 2002; Kippenberger, 1998a; MacIntosh and MacLean, 2001;Tschacher and Brunner, 1995).

We should also note that when Lewin wrote of ‘refreezing’, he referred to pre-venting individuals and groups from regressing to their old behaviours. In thisrespect, Lewin’s view seems to be similar to that of his critics. For example, thelast stage in Kanter et al.’s (1992, p. 384) model of change is to ‘Reinforce andinstitutionalize the change’. More telling, though, is that when Elrod and Tippett(2002) compared a wide range of change models, they found that most approachesto organizational change were strikingly similar to Lewin’s 3-Step model. Whenthey extended their research to other forms of human and organizational change,they also found that ‘Models of the change process, as perceived by diverse andseemingly unrelated disciplines [such as bereavement theory, personal transitiontheory, creative processes, cultural revolutions and scientific revolutions] . . . followLewin’s . . . three-phase model of change . . .’ (Elrod and Tippett, 2002, p. 273).

Criticism 2

Lewin’s work is only relevant to incremental and isolated change projects and isnot able to incorporate radical, transformational change (Dawson, 1994; Dunphyand Stace, 1992, 1993; Harris, 1985; Miller and Friesen, 1984; Pettigrew, 1990a,1990b).

Response 2. This criticism appears to relate to the speed rather than the magnitudeof change because, as Quinn (1980, 1982) pointed out, over time, incrementalchange can lead to radical transformations. It is also necessary to recognize thatLewin was concerned with behavioural change at the individual, group, organi-zational and societal levels (Dickens and Watkins, 1999), whereas rapid transfor-mational change is seen as only being applicable to situations requiring major

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structural change (Allaire and Firsirotu, 1984; Beer and Nohria, 2000; Burnes,2000; Cummings and Worley, 1997). Even in such situations, as Kanter et al. (1992)maintain, these ‘Bold Strokes’ often need to be followed by a whole series of incre-mental changes (a ‘Long March’) in order to align an organization’s culture andbehaviours with the new structure. Lewin did recognize that radical behaviouralor cultural change could take place rapidly in times of crisis (Kippenberger, 1998a;Lewin, 1947a). Such crises may require directive change; again, this may be suc-cessful in terms of structural change but research by Lewin and others has shownthat it rarely works in cases where behavioural change is required (Lewin, 1947b;Kanter et al., 1992; Schein, 1996; Stace and Dunphy, 2001).

Criticism 3

Lewin’s stands accused of ignoring the role of power and politics in organizationsand the conflictual nature of much of organizational life (Dawson, 1994; Hatch,1997; Pettigrew, 1980; Pfeffer, 1992; Wilson, 1992).

Response 3. Given the issues that Lewin was addressing, this seems a strange criti-cism. Anyone seriously addressing racism and religious intolerance, as Lewin was,could not ignore these issues. As Bargal et al. (1992, p. 8) note, Lewin’s approachto change required ‘. . . the taking into account differences in value systems andpower structures of all the parties involved . . .’ This is clear from the followingquotation (Lewin, 1946, p. 203):

An attempt to improve inter-group relations has to face a wide variety of tasks.It deals with problems of attitude and stereotypes in regard to other groups andone’s own group, with problems of development of attitudes and conduct duringchildhood and adolescence, with problems of housing, and the change of thelegal structure of the community; it deals with problems of status and caste,with problems of economic discrimination, with political leadership, and withleadership in many aspects of community life. It deals with the small social bodyof the family, a club or a friendship group, with the larger social body of a schoolor school system, with neighborhoods and with social bodies of the size of acommunity, of the state and with international problems.

We are beginning to see that it is hopeless to attack any one of these aspects ofinter-group relations without considering the others.

One also needs to be aware that French and Raven’s Power/Interaction Model(French and Raven, 1959; Raven, 1965), on which much of the literature on powerand politics is based, owes much to Lewin’s work (Raven, 1993). French was a long-time collaborator of Lewin and Raven studied at the Research Center for Group

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Dynamics in the 1950s. Both have acknowledged the importance and influence ofhis work on their perspective on power (House, 1993; Raven, 1993, 1999).

Criticism 4

Lewin is seen as advocating a top-down, management-driven approach to changeand ignoring situations requiring bottom-up change (Dawson, 1994; Kanter et al.,1992; Wilson, 1992).

Response 4. Lewin was approached for help by a wide range of groups and organizations:

They included representatives of communities, school systems, single schools,minority organizations of a variety of backgrounds and objectives; theyincluded labor and management representatives, departments of the nationaland state governments, and so on. (Lewin, 1946, p. 201)

He clearly recognized that the pressure for change comes from many quarters, notjust managers and leaders, and sought to provide an approach which could accom-modate this. However, regardless of who identified the need to change, Lewinargued that effective change could not take place unless there was a ‘felt need’ byall those concerned; he did not see one group or individual as driving or domi-nating the change process but saw everyone as playing a full and equal part (Lewin,1947b). He believed that only by gaining the commitment of all those concerned,through their full involvement in the change process, would change be successful(Bargal et al., 1992; Dickens and Watkins, 1999; French and Bell, 1984). Conse-quently, rather than arguing that Lewin saw behavioural change as a top-downprocess, it would be more accurate to say that Lewin recognized that it could beinitiated from the top, bottom or middle but that it could not be successful withoutthe active, willing and equal participation of all.

CONCLUSION

Lewin undoubtedly had an enormous impact on the field of change. In re-appraising Lewin’s Planned approach to change, this article seeks to address threeissues: the nature of his contribution; the validity of the criticisms levelled againsthim; and the relevance of his work for contemporary social and organizationalchange.

Looking at Lewin’s contribution to change theory and practice, there are threekey points to note. The first is that Lewin’s work stemmed from his concern to findan effective approach to resolving social conflict through changing group behav-iour (whether these conflicts be at the group, organizational or societal level). The

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second point is to recognize that Lewin promoted an ethical and humanistapproach to change, that saw learning and involvement as being the key processesfor achieving behavioural change. This was for two reasons: (a) he saw thisapproach as helping to develop and strengthen democratic values in society aswhole and thus acting as a buffer against the racism and totalitarianism which sodominated events in his lifetime; (b) based on his background in Gestalt psychol-ogy and his own research, he saw this approach as being the most effective inbringing about sustained behavioural change. The last point concerns the natureof Lewin’s work. Lewin’s Planned approach to change is based on four mutually-reinforcing concepts, namely Field Theory, Group Dynamics, Action Research andthe 3-Step model, which are used in combination to bring about effective change.His critics, though, tend to treat these as separate and independent elements ofLewin’s work and, in the main, concentrate on his 3-Step model of change. Whenseen in isolation, the 3-Step model can be portrayed as simplistic. When seenalongside the other elements of Lewin’s Planned approach, it becomes a muchmore robust approach to change.

We can now examine the criticisms made of Lewin’s Planned approach tochange. The main criticisms levelled at Lewin are that: (1) his view of stability andchange in organizations was at best no longer applicable and at worst ‘wildly in-appropriate’ (Kanter et al., 1992, p. 10); (2) his approach to change is only suitable for isolated and incremental change situations; (3) he ignored power andpolitics; and (4) he adopted a top-down, management-driven approach to change.These criticisms were addressed above, but to recap:

(1) There is substantial evidence that Lewin (1947a, p. 199) recognized that:‘Change and constancy are relative concepts; group life is never withoutchange, merely differences in the amount and type of change exist’. Thereis also a substantial body of evidence in the social, and even physical sci-ences, to support Lewin’s 3-Step perspective on to change (Elrod andTippett, 2002; Hendry, 1996).

(2) As Dickens and Watkins (1999, p. 127) observed: Lewin’s approach is ‘. . .intended to foster change on the group, organizational and even societallevels’. In the main, he saw change as a slow process of working with andthrough groups to achieve behavioural and cultural change. However,writers as diverse as Quinn (1980, 1982) and Kanter et al. (1992) have rec-ognized that an incremental approach can achieve organizational trans-formation. Lewin also recognized that, under certain crisis conditions,organizational transformations can be achieved rapidly (Kippenberger,1998a; Lewin, 1947a). Nevertheless, in the main, even amongst Lewin’scritics, the general view is that only structural and technical change can beachieved relatively speedily (Dawson, 1994; Kanter et al., 1992; Pettigrewet al., 1989, 1992; Wilson, 1992).

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(3) Given Lewin’s concern with issues such as racial and religious conflict, theaccusation that he ignored the role of power and politics is difficult tosustain. One of the main strengths of Field Theory and Group Dynamicsis that they identify the forces within and between groups and show howindividuals behave in response to these. In addition, the iterative, investiga-tive and learning approaches which lie at the heart of Action Research andthe 3-Step model are also designed to reveal and address such issues (Bargaland Bar, 1992).

(4) The issues Lewin sought to tackle were many and varied (Cartwright, 1952;Lewin, 1948a). Lewin’s sympathies were clearly with the underdog, the dis-advantaged and the discriminated against (Cooke, 1999; Marrow, 1969). Hisassistance was sought by a wide range of parties including national and localgovernment, religious and racial groups, and employers and unions; hisresponse emphasized learning and participation by all concerned (Lewin,1946). In the face of this, the charge that he saw change as only being top-down or management-driven is difficult to sustain.

Lewin’s critics have sought to show that his Planned approach to change was sim-plistic and outmoded. By rejecting these criticisms, and by revealing the nature ofhis approach, this article has also shown the continuing relevance of Lewin’s work,whether in organizations or society at large. The need to resolve social conflict hascertainly not diminished since Lewin’s day. Nor can one say that Lewin’s approachseems dated, based as it is on building understanding, generating learning, gainingnew insights, and identifying and testing (and retesting) solutions (Bargal and Bar,1992; Darwin et al., 2002). Certainly, there seems little evidence that one canachieve peace, reconciliation, co-operation or trust by force (Olsen, 2002). Like-wise, in organizations, issues of group effectiveness, behaviour and change havenot diminished in the half century since Lewin’s death, though they may oftennow be labelled differently. However, as in Lewin’s day, there are no quick or easyways of achieving such changes, and Lewin’s approach is clearly still valuable andinfluential in these areas (Cummings and Worley, 1997). This can be seen fromthe enormous emphasis that continues to be placed on the importance of groupbehaviour, involvement, empowerment (Argyris, 1992; Handy, 1994; Hannagan,2002; Huczynski and Buchanan, 2001; Kanter, 1989; Mullins, 2002; Peters, 1993;Schein, 1988; Senge, 1990; Wilson, 1992). Indeed, the advent of the complexityperspective appears to be leading to a renewed interest in Lewin’s work (Back,1992; Kippenberger, 1998a; MacIntosh and MacLean, 2001; Tschacher andBrunner, 1995).

In conclusion, therefore, though Lewin’s contribution to organizational changehas come under increasing criticism since the 1980s, much of this appears to beunfounded and/or based on a narrow interpretation of his work. In contrast,the last decade has also seen a renewed interest in understanding and applying

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his approach to change (Bargal and Bar, 1992; Elrod and Tippett, 2002;Hendry, 1996; Kippenberger, 1998a; MacIntosh and MacLean, 2001; Wooten and White, 1999). In many respects, this should not come as a surprise given thetributes and acknowledgments paid to him by major figures such as Chris Argyris(Argyris et al., 1985) and Edgar Schein (1988). Above all, though, it is a recogni-tion of the rigour of Lewin’s work, based as it was on a virtuous circle of theory,experimentation and practice, and which is best expressed by his famous dictumthat ‘. . . there is nothing so practical as a good theory’ (Lewin, 1943–44,p. 169).

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